CategoryLaw Meets World

Critical Race Theory: Inside and Beyond the Ivory Tower

Abstract The history of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is inextricably intertwined with the history of student activism on law school campuses.  This activism was sparked in resistance to the dominant legal education system and done with the goal of cultivating alternative spaces where law students could learn how to tackle and dismantle the seemingly permanent structures of subordination in the...

Connecting Race and Empire: What Critical Race Theory Offers Outside the U.S. Legal Context

Abstract The renewed solidarity across movements and borders in recent years underscores the importance of transnational understandings of racial justice.  This is particularly true in the current moment, in which global crises such as migration and climate change are laying bare the persistent impacts of structural racism and colonial subordination around the world.  In this Essay, I argue that...

Yes, Critical Race Theory Should Be Taught in Your School: Undoing Racism in K–12 Schooling and Classrooms Through CRT

Abstract Despite panicked calls from the right to keep Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of the K–12 classroom, the authors assert that CRT, one of many theoretical frameworks used in ethnic studies, is needed to address the entrenched status quo of well-documented inequity through racism in schooling.  Rather than deny CRT is being taught in schools, the authors embrace CRT as a tool to disrupt the...

Protect Black Girls

Abstract At its core, Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides us with a panoply of necessary tools and a lens through which to analyze the multilayered relationship between Black girls, their education, and the criminal legal system.  Florida’s history, especially the historical landscape of Central Florida, distinctly highlights the grave importance of CRT when attempting to understand how society...

Critical Race Theory: Another Casualty in the Attack on Facts

Abstract The attack on Critical Race Theory is the latest attempt to undermine the interracial coalition that has been building over the last twenty years.  In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, a global movement for Black lives ensued, which in turn motivated a calculated resistance that mobilized around education.  Not unlike the attempts of the past to stall racial...

Professionalism as a Racial Construct

Abstract This Essay examines professionalism as a tool to subjugate people of color in the legal field.  Professionalism is a standard with a set of beliefs about how one should operate in the workplace.  While professionalism seemingly applies to everyone, it is used to widely police and regulate people of color in various ways including hair, tone, and food scents.  Thus, it is not merely that...

Whiteness as Guilt: Attacking Critical Race Theory to Redeem the Racial Contract

Abstract The year of racial justice awakening following George Floyd’s 2020 murder have been accompanied by a rise in attacks on Black thought, including Critical Race Theory, led by far-right activists who are invested in maintenance of a white supremacist status quo in the United States.  This Essay uses artist Kara Walker’s 2014 Sugar Sphinx to contextualize the critiques on Critical Race...

The Mandate for Critical Race Theory in This Time

Abstract A necessary conclusion from Critical Race Theory (CRT) is that Black people cannot look to the law for justice because racism is baked into the law.  As a result, the movement for Black liberation cannot rely on the law for just outcomes.  This result does not, however, mean that we have to abandon legal interventions altogether.  Instead, for those of us who are lawyers working...

Introduction: Jailhouse Lawyering

Jailhouse lawyering has a long and radical tradition in the American prison system, and for decades, it has been recognized and protected by the U.S. Supreme Court.  In Johnson v. Avery,[1] the Court struck down Tennessee’s restrictions on jailhouse lawyering because “it is fundamental that access of prisoners to the courts for the purpose of presenting their complaints may not be denied or...

Barriers to Jailhouse Lawyering

Abstract Jailhouse lawyers face unreasonable barriers to have their constitutional claims heard post-conviction.  Courts, without adequate regard for the physical limitations inherent behind bars, place procedures over justice. *** They say that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.  When you are poor and incarcerated, you often have no choice.  Your right to appointment of...

Broken Systems: Function by Design

Abstract This Essay traces the roots of the criminal legal and immigration systems and explains my personal journey through these systems, as well as what I have observed about how they operate today.  These systems are rooted in British and colonial laws, as well as Puritanism.  The remnants of these practices still affect our systems today and show us that they are not broken but working...

Applying for Compassionate Release as a Pro Se Litigant

Abstract This Essay describes the importance of exhaustion of administrative remedies to filing petitions for compassionate release as a pro se litigant.  The exhaustion requirement has traditionally functioned as a barrier to filing petitions in federal court.  It can often take months or over a year to fulfill the exhaustion requirement, which means that people seeking compassionate release are...

Insurgent Knowledge: Battling CDCR From Inside the System. The Story of the Essential Collaboration Between Jailhouse Lawyers and Appointed Counsel & Lessons for Resentencing Today

Abstract Jailhouse lawyering enables incarcerated persons throughout our nation to access the court system as pro se litigants, but self-represented litigants face detrimental barriers to obtaining justice.  A partnership between prisoners filing pro se and appointed attorneys is essential to bridge the gap between the vast resources of the State and those of prisoners, equipped with...

Bound by Law, Freed by Solidarity: Navigating California Prisons and Universities as a Jailhouse Lawyer

Abstract For jailhouse lawyers, winning a lawsuit seems like a victory, but there are multiple barriers to practicing law post-incarceration. Building on personal experiences, this Essay focuses on the deterrents to legal education in prison and post-incarceration for jailhouse lawyers. Through an examination of structural obstacles that keep formerly incarcerated people out of the legal...